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Sue Perkins: The Disappointing Second Show

Note: This review is from 2006

Review by Steve Bennett

In some, but not all, of the publicity for this hour, it is
titled The Disappointing Second Show. Well, at least that should
get trading standards off her back; for Sue Perkins' return to
Edinburgh is a weary, lacklustre affair.

She's been touring for most of the 11 months since she was
last here, and that informs her material: from poor-quality regional
tourists attractions to local DJs she endured en route. But the
sarcastic observations she makes are so inconsequential as to
be barely worth mentioning.

This is very underwritten stand-up, as if the first thing
that pops into her head is the be all and end all of a topic,
without any need to delve deeper. Isn't the Surveillance bit
of the Mirror's 3am Girls' column trivial? Isn't government advice
on bird flu stupid? Isn't the Microsoft paper clip annoying?
Isn't highlighting the bleeding obvious utterly pointless?

Some gags are hugely dated, too. Spare us another comic who
hilariously misinterprets the 'slow children' sign, or who astutely
observes that cloning Dolly the sheep ­ which happened ten
years ago, by the way ­ was a waste of time as sheep all
look the same anyway.

It seems such a waste, as Perkins is an obviously intelligent
woman, self-deprecating and charming on stage, with a nice turn
of phrase. But all that is squandered on some of the most pedestrian
material around.

There's a good routine on being told during her Catholic education
that the Pope cannot err, leading on to patron saints of obscure
causes; but for every good minute, there's five poor ones. The
segment on coming out to her parents, for example, is the most
blandly impersonal treatment of a personal subject you will find.

From all this lightweight dross, Perkins manages to pull out
a wonderful, quietly moving, conclusion totally out of kilter
with the rest of the show, relying on the most touching and unexpected
deployment of the comic callback technique you could hope for.
How something so beautiful can top off something so bland is
a mystery.

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